776 



THE AMERICA15 BEE JOURNAL. 



time to take advantage of the main 

 honey-flow of our Held ; and tliird, 

 lliat a bee is of little value as a honey- 

 gatherer only as it can be placed on 

 tlie tield of action in just the right 

 time. In this way the quantity of 

 honey which a bee can gather in a 

 life-time becomes of interest to us, 

 tliat we may work assiduously to 

 liave that life-time come when our 

 field is yielding honey. 

 Borodino,© X. Y. 



Fanners' Advocate. 



Our Honey Market. 



G. B. JONES. 



Next to its production, the sale of 

 our honey is the important considera- 

 tion. Ourmarket must be established 

 by our own efforts, and rests with our- 

 selves to make it good or poor. There 

 is only one way to create a demand for 

 our produce, and that consists in 

 making it attractive to tlie eye, pleas- 

 ant to the taste, wholesome, and un- 

 doubted as to its purity and genuine 

 quality. Just how ourhoney shall be 

 made attractive must, of course, be 

 decided by each producer in accord- 

 ance with Ills own taste and ideas ; 

 but a few hints may be of service to 

 beginners. 



For instance : Whether honey be 

 packed in glass or tin, it should have 

 a label peculiar to itself— one which, 

 if possible, will bespeak at sight the 

 richness and purity of the goods them- 

 selves. The labels for glass packages 

 stiould be small, as no label can be 

 made to look as nice as the honey 

 itself ; i)ut those for tin vessels should 

 be large. 



To make honey pleasant to the 

 taste it must be well ripened. Each 

 variety must be separate, and have its 

 own distinctive flavor retained. It 

 must be clear and clean. This will 

 also make it wholesome. 



As a mark of its purity, the produ- 

 cer's name should ;tppearprominently 

 upon the label. AVhen tlie producer 

 is sufficiently well known, this alone is 

 a warrant for the reliability of the 

 Imney he sells, and much is already 

 accomplished towards the establish- 

 ing of his niaiket; but when he is 

 not well known he has much to con- 

 tend with in these days of adultera- 

 tion and unfounded suspicion. He 

 should sell his honey only to those 

 who know him, and to grocers who 

 are considered reliable and whose 

 word is sufficient to sell what they 

 recommend. His chief effort should 

 be to sell to those whom he knows are 

 competent judges. 



A very important point in working 

 up and holding a market consists in 

 the uniformity of the package and 

 label used. Having once adopted anv 

 special package and label, it is best to 

 continue it persistently. Consumers 

 soon become accustonied to it, and 

 will recognize it as Mr. So-and-So's 

 honey, without reading the name, and 

 having bought a package of it, they 

 will, if pleased with it, come for an- 

 other of the same. 



Our first attention should be paid to 

 the home and local markets. Let us 



sell all we can near home, and there 

 only, till we can sell no more ; and 

 then let us gradually extend our limits 

 until we begin to ship to remote, and 

 lastly, to foreign markets. Only by 

 beginning at home shall we make a 

 success of it ; for the home and local 

 markets always pay the best. 



Never force honey upon the market 

 too soon. As long as there are small 

 fruits, cheap or plenty of apples, peo- 

 ple do not want honey, and will buy 

 it only at ruinous prices. Wait until 

 small fruit is gone, apples are dear, 

 and people are tired of fruit anyway, 

 and do not want to open their pre- 

 serves "just yet," then your time has 

 come to offer them a change in the 

 shape of some delicious honey ; and 

 see if they do not "jump at it," and 

 pay good prices. 



Brautford, Ont. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



California Bee-Notes. 



J. D. KNAS. 



A year like the past takes all the 

 conceit ont of one, and makes bee- 

 keepers feel the bottom of their 

 pockets. I know of many who did 

 not get a pound of surplus honey the 

 past season. Some with a small num- 

 ber of colonies, and in a good locality, 

 did a fair business in extracted 

 honey, and in one or two instances, 

 some did well in comb honey. One 

 party wrote me that ao colonies gave 

 a surplus of 100 pounds of extracted 

 honey per colony ; another, with one 

 colony in the spring, lost the first 

 swarm, but obtained 3 swarms and 

 2-50 pounds of comb honey in sections. 

 His colonies are strong now, and were 

 working on alfalfa in November. 

 Tliey are still storing some honey. Of 

 course these are exceptional cases, 

 and near where irrigation is the 

 practice of the locality. 



Napa county generally fares better 

 than the average, in an extra-dry year, 

 but this year it was also an exception. 

 Our crops were all short of maturity. 

 In the hills, in June, all the pastures 

 were as bare as they usually are in 

 October. We had no fall flowers, 

 consequently the hives are light, and 

 queens have stopped breeding. Should 

 we have warm weather after the 

 rains, flowers will be plentiful, and 

 queens will begin laying again. 



The following which I wrote for the 

 Pncific Rural Press, may interest the 

 readers of the Bee Jouknal : 



It seems that a novelty has been 

 born to mankind. Some parties say 

 that they lia^e actually seen with 

 their own eyes, bees boring into fruit. 

 Of course what a man sees with his 

 own eyes cannot be disputed. The 

 past summer and fall iny bees fared 

 very poorly. I had to give them all 

 my surplus (?) extracted blue-sage 

 honey to keep them breeding and to 

 keep them from starving. We had 

 no flowers in the flelds since June. 

 The pastures were as bare as they 

 generally are in October. I expected, 

 of course, that when we dried our 

 fruit, the bees would have a jolly 

 feast. So they did for the first two 



days, but by that time the sun dried 

 up the surface moisture, and coated 

 over the exposed surfaces of the fruit 

 (peaches), and the bees appeared to 

 be disappointed ; and the racks were 

 only about 2.5 feet from about 100 

 colonies of Italian bees that were 

 ready for business In the sweet-gath- 

 ering line. 



How dilTerent it was with the 

 yellow-jackets. After the' bees left 

 the fruit the yellow -jackets kept at it, 

 afid cut and carried away pieces of 

 the fruit as large as themselves, and 

 actually, in some cases, leaving noth- 

 ing but the peach-skins. The " jack- 

 ets " were unusually plenty the past 

 season, and made some of their nests 

 in tlie ground near the trails, where 

 they stung any one in passing. Per- 

 haps we have all the yellow-jackets of 

 the State in our vicinity ; at any rate, 

 I think I never saw them more num- 

 erous. They would cluster at the 

 entrances of the hives. and catch a bee 

 and try to kill it. and sometimes were 

 successful. Being not so susceptible 

 to the cold as the bees, they would 

 enter the hive of a weak colony in 

 the morning before the bees were 

 flying, steal the stores of the hive, as 

 the bees would cluster close to keep 

 themselves warm, leaving the outside 

 combs uncovered and" unguarded, 

 while the "jackets" improved their 

 opportunity. They even penetrated 

 into the room where I have several 

 hundred empty combs, and cut the 

 combs as though the mice had been 

 at them, for the sake of the old pollen 

 stored therein. But I suppose the 

 " jackets " would not do that way in 

 any other county but Napa. I will 

 swear to it (if necessary), because I 

 saw it with my own eyes, and seeing 

 is a solid fact. 



In regard to the bees boring into a 

 neigh l>or"s raisins, all our scientific 

 men and learned naturalists have to 

 take a " back seat." They have all 

 the time been laboring under a mis- 

 take. It appears to them that bees 

 can bore or puncture fruit. Their 

 tongue is not pointed, but slightly flat 

 at the extremity, and hollow. They 

 lick up and suck the sweets when in 

 a liquid state. Even should they use 

 their jaws for biting they could not 

 cut the skin of the fruit. Langstroth 

 tells us in his book that he experi- 

 mented with hunches of grapes, 

 where some were pricked and others 

 were perfect. While they emptied 

 those which were punctured, they did 

 not appear to work to any advantage 

 on the sound ones, but left the 

 bunches as soon as the bruised ones 

 were emptied, while they fairly 

 clustered on the imperfect ones, as 

 long as there was any chance of get- 

 ting anything from tliem. My experi-' 

 ence has been a similar one. In all 

 cases where I have found bees on 

 fruit, I have found that they were not 

 the first trespassers, and if the parties 

 who actmilly saw bees boring into 

 fruit, had used their sharp (i')eyes 

 they would have made other discov- 

 eries, viz., that possibly a stray yellow- 

 jacket had been there, too. They will 

 work quicker than bees, and use their 

 jaws to their better advantage. I 

 learn from an old hunter that they 



